Description

Having traveled the world, hospitality fanatic Adnan Sarkar reaized the craze of bubble tea concept globally, missing in India. In 2015, Sarkar Indianized the concept and launched his start-up Dr Bubbles. Beginning with Mumbai, the brand has already been picked up well by customers and Sarkar has put expansion in full throttle via franchising.

What makes a bubble tea?

Bubble tea is bastcally ice tea or milk tea served with tapfoca pearls root. It is a staple drink for people in Southeast Asia, the US and the UK We have about 80 flavors in drinks and 30 flavors in bubble toppings and It really hit well with our female hence we have gone really big in varlety so that it appeals to the vast Indian palette.

How did you study the local market before starting Dr Bubbles?

For the first year it was about getting the menu right, as appealing to Indian masses was quite challenging. We kept modifying the menu untilwe got it right. I have always been in the hospltality sector and had run clubs, bars and a restaurant apart from runnin a chain of three-star hotels.

We started with three shops in three different set-ups- mall, hl-street and in ‘khaugall’ sort of an area tn Mumbal to test the concept and get people to react. We also talked to investors but since the concept was quite expertmental in India, they refused to back us.

Have you retained its essence in India?

Since globally bubble tea have a slushy consistency which means it is more watery, Indians won’t ike to pay Rs. 200 for a glass of a watery drink; hence, we tweaked the product completely. Indians prefer thicker and richer drinks and hence we made it that way.

One could say that we have diluted the concept of bubble tea but we have done that to appeal to the Indlan customers. Also since people are getting more health conscious, we are offering green ice tea instead of black tea. It really hit well with our female customers.

So is there any healthy side to it?

Absolutely, all of our milkshakes can be made a dairy-free. The concept of vegan food is still new in India even as people don’t care about it. But we have kept it vegan. Our yogurt shakes are also without dairy and they are pro-biotic and full of protein.

Are you focusing only on the younger population?

Tea is usually preferred by middle-aged or elderly people but we want the teens, who prefer coffee to also try it. But that’s perhaps the biggest challenge for us. Our franchisees make a lot of communication effort to attract teens towards the tea culture and sell the bubble tea. We also support the tea with lot of free products like candy floss etc. This gets us great publicity.